Castigate

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈkæs.tɪ.ɡeɪt/

Definitions

  1. To reprimand or criticize someone severely for wrongdoing or poor behavior
  2. To severely criticize or express strong disapproval toward someone for a fault or misdeed
  3. To rebuke harshly and publicly condemn someone for an error or wrongdoing

Etymology: To a Roman, the person delivering a harsh rebuke was performing a kind of purification. The Latin verb "castīgāre," to correct or punish, was built on "castus," pure or chaste. The second half probably comes from "agere," to drive or make, the same pattern found in "purgāre," to purge, from "pūrus." To correct someone was, quite literally, to make them clean. Purity itself may have begun with a blade. "Castus" is traced to the Proto-Indo-European root "*ḱes-," to cut, as though being pure meant having your faults cut away. The same Latin word gave English "chaste," and its negative, "incestus," gave "incest." Through Portuguese "casta," a pure lineage, it also produced "caste." The verb reached English twice. The first arrival came through Old French, where "castīgāre" had worn down to "chastier." From it Middle English made "chastise" and the verb "chaste," which in the early 16th century was extended to "chasten." These were words of discipline that a preacher or parent might apply with a rod as readily as with the tongue. Then, at the beginning of the 17th century, scholars went back to the Latin and borrowed it again, this time straight from the participle "castīgātus," with the learned "-ate" ending that English was attaching to so many Latin verbs in those years. The result is three doublets from a single source: "chasten," "chastise" and castigate, one family that entered by two different doors. The Latin verb had also lived a bookish life. Renaissance printers liked to advertise their editions of the classics as "castigata," corrected and purged of copyists' errors, so a text could be castigated as well as a person. Over the following centuries castigate shed most of its physical sense. Its French-born siblings kept a lingering memory of the whip, while the Latinate newcomer settled into the language of reviews, editorials and parliamentary debate. There the punishment is delivered entirely in words, and the old idea that the person on the receiving end is being made pure has quietly disappeared.

Synonyms: reprimand, scold, rebuke

Antonyms: praise